News & Articles on Electric Vehicles

We've made great strides in moving the electricity sector toward renewable energy. However, transportation remains a major source of air pollution and global warming gases. If we are to make a transition to renewable energy, we will need to electrify as much of the economy as we can, including transportation. Electrified rail is one means, electric vehicles (EVs) are another. Toward that end I've created this category under renewable energy. The focus is mostly on our experience driving an EV.

I was talking to a Chevy Bolt newby and in the course of the conversation I found that they knew another Bolt driver who charged off-peak using a cheap 120-volt timer you can get at any big box store...[more]

We are approaching the two-year anniversary of leasing a 2017 Chevy Bolt EV. This is a good time to take stock of any degradation in the Bolt's traction battery capacity and how that compares with a...[more]

The auto industry is still ruled by the internal combustion engine. Cars (and trucks) powered by gasoline and diesel continue to dominate. However, an automotive transition is underway according to a...

In general, much more of the public will soon find out that you can’t buy a gas car in most classes that can hold a candle to its electric competitors, and automakers still trying to push gasmobiles...

The Flathead Electric Co-Op (FEC) boasts the state’s only electric car loaning program. FEC research analyst Wade Harris says the Co-Op started the program to introduce electric cars to the Flathead...

As noted previously, there are no public non-Tesla EV charging stations on the East Side of the Sierra Nevada from Mojave, California to Gardnerville, Nevada on US 395--a distance of more than 300...[more]

If there’s one thing the legacy automakers can agree on, it’s that nobody wants to buy electric vehicles. In June, when BMW Director of Development Klaus Frölich said, “There are no customer requests...

I am a slow learner, but I've come around to Sean Nelson's view that Android Auto is an indispensible tool for the Chevy Bolt EV. Nelson drives a Bolt in Canada's British Columbia province. And he...[more]

My wife Nancy's friend Virginia was visiting. Virginia has a relative she hadn't seen in many years on California's central coast in Arroyo Grande. We have a friend in adjoining Grover Beach. The two...[more]

Our ambitious 2,000+ mile Bolt EV road trip, from home in Boston to Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, and back again, is underway! It starts here, with this leisurely late afternoon...

IN FEBRUARY, Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, introduced a bill to end the federal tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles...

Drivers considering buying electric vehicles (EVs) often mention range anxiety, the perception that EVs cannot be driven long distances reliably, as a source of apprehension. One of the main reasons...

New energy company BYD is taking another step into the lucrative North American bus market with the announcement of a new bus plant in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. The new 45,000-square-foot facility...

One million miles driven and counting – that’s the status of the 113 long-range electric vehicles (EVs) in the state fleet managed by the Department of Enterprise Services. It is a milestone reached...

Attempting a straightforward 550-mile round trip from L.A. to Las Vegas in a 2019 Chevy Bolt EV, this NY Times reporter fails at basic trip planning, passing the buck for his errors to electric cars...

In an article by Ivan Penn published this weekend, the New York Times has stretched the truth beyond breaking point to suggest that EVs cannot make the LA–Las Vegas–LA round trip without needing over...

If you’re thinking of buying a new car, you owe it to yourself and every other living thing on the planet to at least consider going electric. I bought a fully electric car six months ago and have no...

As a former Hoosier and as an Electric Vehicle advocate I keep an eye on EV development in the state of Indiana. Yes, Indiana is the home of the arch-conservative vice president and former governor...[more]

While funding for CalTrans' District 9 DC Fast Charge stations under the state's 30-30 program has been approved, the stations have yet to go out for bid. Bids likely will be released in July 2019...[more]

Denny's on Hwy 58 in Tehachapi has been slated for a ChargePoint DCFC station for some time. As of two weeks ago there was no sign of activity. Today there was a chain-link fence closing off a...[more]

I've added a series of new pages answering frequently asked questions about EVs. These can be found under the Electric Vehicles section of this web site. The pages are listed under Frequently Asked...[more]

RATP said three separate firms won the tender to supply the buses — Heuliez Bus, Bollore and Alstom. The deals are worth “up to 400 million euros” ($450 million). It’s the biggest bus purchase of its...

The chargers, branded as the ChargePoint Express 200, are made by Tritium of Australia which itself brands them as the Veefil-RT. They have been made since 2013 and support CHAdeMO and CCS with dual...

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said Monday that he's planning to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to expand the electric vehicle tax credit and link it to domestic manufacturing, calling the bill...

There are four route planners I've used for planning trips in our Chevy Bolt. I've reported on my experience with EV Trip Planner, Green Race, and Chevy's own Energy Assist App. The first two are...[more]

I previously reported on my experience using three different EV trip planners. See Energy Consumption Estimators, Trip Planners, and the Chevy Bolt EV. Since then I've been experimenting with A...[more]

We recently completed a round trip from Bakersfield to Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park in our Chevy Bolt. We've done this trip many times in a gasoline-powered car, but this was the first...[more]

We've now made the trip a few times in both the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Bolt. As with our trips to Kernville, actual consumption has varied for each trip and has varied with the results of four...[more]

“Performance models need to have a more assertive sound, with more bass. It cannot be a high pitched din, like a sewing machine. It has to be futuristic,” he said, adding that SUVs will have a deeper...

To find out, I ventured out on a very Canadian quest behind the wheel of a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV in the middle of January. Turns out, if you’re going to commit to daily driving an electric car in a...

Our family car--our only car--is a Chevy Bolt. When we want to drive somewhere, we drive the Bolt. The Bolt is a battery-electric vehicle (EV). It runs on electricity. You can't just pull up to a gas...[more]

Everyone who has a cell phone knows that batteries don't last forever. For drivers of electric vehicles (EVs), or those considering one, the first question that comes to mind is, "How long will the...[more]

Long-time Sierra Club activist Harold Wood and his wife Janet bought a Chevy Volt about a year ago. Wood, a Visalia, California authority on the life and times of John Muir, the founder of the Sierra...[more]

Our 2017 Chevy Bolt EV is about 18 months old. The windshield wipers were beginning to streak so I decided to replace the wipers. Despite that the replacement wipers for the windshield were not...[more]

President Donald Trump on Thursday said General Motors Co’s (GM.N) decision to shift much of its focus to electric vehicles will not succeed, and he asserted a new trade deal will make it harder for...

All new large commercial projects along major travel corridors should install ultrafast-charging stations for electrical vehicles. These will serve the developers own commercial interest as well as...[more]

Since we and friends each leased a Chevy Bolt in November 2017, we've watched prices rise and stay high. Several of our friends and acquaintances have considered a Bolt, GM's first mass-produced,...[more]

Proposition 6, the measure to roll back an increase in gasoline taxes, failed in California's midterm election. Projects that depended upon the tax increase, such as CalTrans' 30-30 program, will now...[more]

While a friend was visiting from Canada, we took her on a road trip from Bakersfield, California to the coast via Mount Pinos in the San Emigdio Range. This is an easy trip in a gasoline-powered car....[more]

On our way to Santa Cruz, California we stopped in Madera to charge our Chevy Bolt EV. Just a few miles north Electrify America--the VW subsidiary ordered to do penance for its dieselgate scandal--is...[more]

One of the likely subtexts of the Barra plan is to eviscerate the clean air rules put in place by the California Air Resources Board. This is a fierce bone of contention between the Golden State and...

Community activists have raised a solar pavilion in the small town of Lee Vining that they plan to use for charging electric vehicles (EVs). Dubbed the Pioneer Pavilion, the project is part of an...[more]

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and General Motors Co (GM.N), which have lobbied Congress to lift a cap on electric vehicles eligible for a $7,500 tax credit, could get their way for up to four years under a new...

It was something of a surprise when Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen announced this week that Denmark will phase out gasoline and diesel car sales to make room for up to 1 million electric...

Electrify America proposes to heavily invest in ultra-fast DC charging in 9 metro areas of California between July, 2019 until the end of 2021, according to a plan recently submitted for approval to...

We leased a Chevy Bolt EV in early November 2017. I've been driving the electric vehicle daily since then. We've also taken it on several round-trip excursions of 300 to 600 miles. I know enough...[more]

Mammoth Lakes electric vehicle advocates have joined together to form the Eastern Sierra chapter of the Electric Auto Association with the hope of spurring the installation of non-Tesla EV charging...[more]

Despite its reputation for being electric vehicle (EV) friendly, California lags behind other North American states and provinces in the density of non-Tesla EV fast-charging stations relative to...[more]

Envision Solar International, the leading producer of unique and sustainable infrastructure products for electric vehicle charging, energy security and outdoor media, announced that the Monterey Bay...

Bombardier recently presented the Talent 3, which according to the press release, is the first of its kind to enter passenger operation in Europe in over 60 years. The first prototype has a range of...

Raejean Fellows, president of the Electric Auto Association, has begun a petition calling on the Mammoth Lakes ski resort to install public EV charging for its non-Tesla customers driving electric.[more]

In mid August we took our annual vacation to Toulumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park. We drove the family car. Nothing special about that per se, we've been doing it for years. What was different...[more]

Europe hit the milestone nearly a year after China, which has a much larger car market, but ahead of the US, which is expected to reach the landmark later this year driven by the appetite for Tesla’s...

Ok, it wasn't four-wheeling, but it was off-road. Today I took the Bolt off road with the Kern Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. The objective was watering a group of Bakersfield Cactus...[more]

Since I've been driving electric I've been itching to drive across the Sierra Nevada to Independence, California from our home in Bakersfield. We love the "East Side" and it's our escape from the...[more]

The UAW is committed to take these lessons and turn these challenges into opportunities. And the UAW has a long history of support for environmental advocacy -- supporting fuel economy standards and...

Virginia is using part of its Volkswagen emissions test-cheating settlement to pay for a statewide network of electric vehicle charging stations, and has chosen Los Angeles-based EVgo Services LLC as...

After receiving a question about how to find some basic information on the Bolt, I thought maybe I should post a little introduction to the dash displays--there are two: the driver's display and the...[more]

We leased a Chevy Bolt EV (electric vehicle) in November 2017. Since then we've taken the car on several road trips of varying distances. Based on these trips, I've tested the accuracy of three...[more]

The populist government in Italy, Europe’s most sluggish market for electric cars, has a big-bang plan to put 1 million of the vehicles on the nation’s roads. Getting anywhere near that target could...

We met Wirth in the square in front of the rathaus or city hall. We were elated to find that he not only would drive us to his parents but he'd rented a Renault Zoe electric car for the trip from car...[more]

We made another run to the coast from Bakersfield in our 2017 Chevy Bolt. This was a business trip. I had a half-day lecture to give at CalPoly in San Luis Obispo. So there was no dawdling to take...[more]

The first all-production electric aircraft to fly in Fresno County took off under sunny skies as part of the Sustainable Aviation Project, an effort of the cities of Reedley and Mendota and CALSTART...

As part of Volkswagen’s continued effort to seek repentance for the Dieselgate scandal, the German automaker is investing billions into electric cars. That includes a new announcement Wednesday that...

Automakers play a very long game, and they know this new generation is coming. “As we see more millennials coming into the marketplace, companies are looking to strike a more efficient picture,” says...

It should be obvious that the future of transportation will be electric vehicles (EVs). As countries turn away from internal combustion engine vehicles, the most aggressive outlooks see EVs making up...

The weather forecast for electric vehicle (EV) naysayers is getting worse. Storms have battered the entrenched camps, and after successful waves of pushback and myth busting, yet another study tells...

Gleb Nikiforov, CEO of Autochargers.ca, a national company that supplies equipment for electric vehicles, says the plant aims to manufacture 40,000 charging stations a year, starting in 2019, and to...

Five popular BEVs in both rough and scenic Norwegian winter conditions. This was not at all going to be yet another urban test. Not your ideal conditions for driving battery electric vehicles (BEV),...

17 March a small group caravanned from Bakersfield to the Desert Tortoise Preserve's new parcel adjacent to the Springbok solar power plant near Cantil, California. The plant is located just north of...[more]

12 March I drove our Chevy Bolt to the ChargePoint station at the Palmdale Water District (PWD). I had an interview with the executives there, and, conveniently for me, they had recently installed a...[more]

We recently heard from CleanTechnica reader Martin Hemdricks, who told us about a scurrilous indictment of electric cars that recently showed up in his email inbox. It charged that electric cars put...

ChargePoint, Inc., a leading provider of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations, appears to have lost a bid to provide charging stations to Electrify America and promptly sued the winning bidder for...

On 12 February 2018 we drove our Chevy Bolt to Grover Beach from Bakersfield, California, a distance of nearly 150 miles. I'd been anticipating this drive for several months. It was a first for us to...[more]

Association president Simon-Pierre Rioux said the pace of deployment has slowed significantly in the last 12 months because of a lack of private financial partners. He suggested that Quebec could use...

Tesla vehicles are becoming strangely popular with police departments all over the world and while the Model S has so far been the electric car of choice for police use, the Ontario Provincial Police...

I just passed my 1 year anniversary owning my Bolt EV, and during that first year I put over 15,000 emission-free miles on it. Rarely being affected by range anxiety due to the ample 238 mile range,...

We returned home after a two-week Christmas holiday. We found the Bolt where we left it. Always a good sign here in Bakersfield where cars disappear from the owners' drive way on a regular basis. [more]

First, despite fears that EVs would overwhelm the existing electric grid infrastructure, only a very minor fraction of them—0.19 percent—have actually necessitated distribution system or service line...

Electric mobility in Bulgaria is gaining momentum. Swiss power and automation company ABB recently announced its plan to further extend the charging station network for electric vehicles in Bulgaria,...

At the Indianapolis International Airport, the situation for passengers and the environment has improved with a fleet of electric airport shuttles that officials say will be the nation’s largest — at...

On 9 November 2017 we leased a Chevy Bolt EV for about the cost of a cell-phone plan. We chose the base model, the LT, with fast-charge option, heated front seats, and heated steering wheel. In our...[more]

The good news is that our brand-new Chevy Bolt EV is back from the service department. The bad news is that after only eight days in our possession it had to be towed from our house to the Chevy...[more]

We leased a 2015 Nissan Leaf in late 2014. This was our first electric vehicle (EV). We liked the car, but we returned it to Nissan when the lease expired. We've now leased a Chevy Bolt. Why we did...[more]

Have you been considering making the switch to an electric vehicle? Not sure how much money you could save by using electricity for fuel? The average driver in the U.S. will save over $700 each year...

With a slew of new electric vehicles (EVs) on the horizon, dealers are trying to move existing electric cars off their lots. One long-range EV, the Chevy Bolt, can be had in California for the price...[more]

We returned from a short holiday to find someone had stolen some minor stuff from our Chevy Volt, including 20-year old cloth shopping bags! But they also walked off with our Jesla mobile charge...[more]

Today, the new Dutch government presented its detailed plan for the coming years and it includes making all new cars emission-free by 2030 – virtually banning petrol- and diesel-powered cars in favor...

The summer of love for battery cars prompted newspaper editorials heralding the end of the internal combustion engine. One bank even forecast that all new car sales in Europe would be electric within...

Yet a wholesale move to EVs, in order to meet a ban on petrol and diesel cars, would add just 10% to UK electricity demand, new analysis from consultants Cambridge Econometrics shows. This would also...

Below is a short summary of the EV Trip Reports I’ve posted to MyNissanLeaf.com. They can also be found on my web site www.wind-works.org under EV Trip Reports. There’s more commentary both on my web...[more]

According to Rwanda Development Board, the car manufacturer has completed a feasibility study to assemble cars with low fuel consumption and gas emissions in Rwanda, including electric cars. It will...

For EV drivers in Norway, the retailer is rolling out more electric chargers at its locations, and Couche-Tard is close to forming a relationship with a consortium of car manufacturers on a charging...

If you’re an Oregonian and thinking about an electric car, you may want to wait a bit as a bill is about to be signed into law that will establish a rebate of up to $2,500 for electric vehicles sold...

“I think a lot about electric cars,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously said at a party at the very end of the 80s. “Do you think a lot about electric cars?” The problem with thinking a lot about electric...

NB Power and Irving Oil are teaming up to install seven fast-charging stations for electric vehicles throughout the province. The first station was unveiled Thursday morning at the Irving Big Stop in...

People will charge their cars at home, where possible, overnight. Otherwise, they will want to charge wherever they park: on the streets in front of their city apartments, in the parking lot at work,...

The state, long a champion of electric cars, is considering a bill to provide rebates to EV buyers at the time of purchase, reducing the sale price right as customers drive off the lot by as much as...

Electric-car advocates say the program holds the promise of opening the benefits of the emission-free cars up to the masses. They also say prices on electric cars are coming down as more makers have...

The reasons are pretty simple. EVs are better cars, more simply built with fewer systems to fail. They are very cheap or free to fuel, have dynamic acceleration and handling and a range that is fast...

If you build it, they will come. It's an age-old adage, and in the context of electric vehicles, it doesn't refer to the cars themselves, but rather the charging stations that pump energy into their...

Mike Brigham, the force behind Toronto's SolarShare, loves his Chevy Bolt EV. "The range estimates on the car seem to be incredibly accurate," says Brigham. "The last trips between a charge totaled...[more]

For various reasons we haven’t been able to take our Nissan Leaf, a battery electric vehicle (EV), out on the road until this past weekend. I was speaking at the March for Science in Tehachapi 22...[more]

Push came to shove: our family of seven finally had to buy a second car. The upside is that it's 100 per cent electric, ergo, totally awesome. After the promotions and incentives and taxes and fees,...

We don’t refine any fossil fuels in Manitoba, so all the gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas we burn is imported. As a result, between $2 billion and $3 billion "leak" out of our economy each year....

At present, there is not a single standard for plugs to recharge electric vehicles. That means that people who drive electric cars can’t rely on refueling at any of a wide range of nearly ubiquitous...

Desperate to cover the latest catastrophic meltdown to hit the nuclear industry as Toshiba sinks under the weight of its failures to construct nuclear power plant through its Westinghouse subsidiary,...

Quebec, the first Canadian province to pass such legislation, joins 10 U.S. states including California that have similar laws designed to grow the supply and sales of plug-in electric vehicles at a...

John Rowell likes to push boundaries. Rowell, the man behind EVSEadapters.com pushed his Nissan Leaf, a mass-market electric vehicle (EV), to the end of Mineral King National Park and had to coast...[more]

On 1 November Thilo Wirth rented a Renault Zoe from Cambio car sharing service for a trip from Cologne to Miehlen, Germany. The Zoe is Renault’s version of the Nissan Leaf, a mass-market electric...[more]

We recently passed the two-year mark on our 2015 Nissan Leaf, a battery electric vehicle (EV). The event was a good time to take stock of how much the Leaf’s traction battery has degraded during that...[more]

I have revisited my harsh criticism of the Chevy Volt. In the summer of 2011, I was asked to test drive the car for Automobile Magazine as part of a photo shoot among the wind farms in the Tehachapi...[more]

Drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) over the Tejon Pass on I-5 that plan to use two new DC Fast Chargers (DCFC) should have contingency plans. Depending upon the vehicle they are driving, they may...[more]

It might sound like an obvious thing to most people, electricity is cheaper than gas, but I find that people are not really aware of the electricity rate discrepancy around the US and the world. It’s...

Optional in some markets on higher-end trim models and standard in the U.S. on the Nissan LEAF SL and Nissan LEAF SV trim models, the 30 kWh battery pack has quickly become the standard battery pack...

There is one thing Tesla can be proud of: Automakers around the world are getting off their duffs. Today, French carmaker Renault announced at the Paris auto show that its fully electric “ZOE will be...

A year on from the “Dieselgate” scandal that engulfed Volkswagen, damning new research reveals that all major diesel car brands, including Fiat, Vauxhall and Suzuki, are selling models that emit far...